Author:Marshall Strategy

December 1, 2017 In Blog, Consumer, Corporate, Marshall News, Media, Names and Naming Systems, Naming, New Work By Marshall Strategy

Ten Principles for Renaming

We’re pleased to be included in the fifth edition of Designing Brand Identity, by Alina Wheeler. This comprehensive guide to brand identity is a valuable resource for designers, marketers, CEOs, brand builders and internal teams. For the new edition, we contributed a list of key principles of brand naming to consider when renaming your product or a company.

Ten Principles for Renaming

by Marshall Strategy

Be clear about why change is needed. You should have a compelling reason, and clear business benefits, for going through the name change process. Making a strong case for change – whether legal, market-based or other, will help rise above emotional issues and enable a more successful and meaningful effort.
Assess the impact of change. A name change is more complicated than creating a new name because it affects established brand equity and all existing brand communications. You should conduct a thorough audit of equity and communication assets, to fully understand how a name change will affect your investments and operations.
Know what your choices are. Depending on your reason for change, it can be very difficult to consider change in the abstract. It is much easier to commit to a change when you have alternative names to consider that solve your communication issues.
Know what you are trying to say before you name it. Naming is a highly emotional issue that can be hard to judge objectively. By first agreeing on what your new name should say, you concentrate your efforts on choosing the name that says it best.
Avoid trendy names – By definition, these are names that will lose their appeal over time. Choosing a new name simply because it sounds “hip” or “cool” generally results in names that wear quickly.
“Empty Vessel Names” require filling. Made-up or meaningless names will require more investment to build understanding, memorability and proper spelling than names that have some inherent meaning. Compare the immediate meaning and relevance of names like Google and Amazon to empty vessels like Kijiji and Zoosk.
Avoid names that are too specific. This may be the reason you needed to change in the first place. Names that identify a specific geography, technology or trend might be relevant for a period of time, but in the long run they could restrict your ability to grow.
Understand that a new name can’t do everything. Names are powerful tools, but they do not tell the whole story. A name change alone – without rethinking of all brand communications – could risk being seen as superficial. Consider how new taglines, design, communications and other context-building tools should work with the new name to build a rich new story that you can own.
Ensure you can own it. Check patent and trademark offices, common law usages, URL’s, Twitter handles and regional/cultural sensitivities before you decide, and make the investment to protect your name. This is best done by an experienced intellectual property attorney.
Transition with confidence. Make sure you introduce your new name as part of a value-oriented story that conveys clear benefits to your employees, customers and shareholders. The message “we’ve changed our name” on its own generally falls flat. Commit to the change with confidence and implement as quickly and efficiently as possible. Having two names in the market at the same time is confusing to both internal and external audiences.

If you wish to make a meaningful statement, a name change is not enough. The name should represent a unique, beneficial, and sustainable story that resonates with customers, investors, and employees.

Philip Durbrow, Chairman & CEO, Marshall Strategy

Companies change their names for many reasons, but in every case, a clear rationale for change with strong business and brand benefits is critical.

Ken Pasternak, Managing Director, Marshall Strategy

Notable Renaming

Old Name	New Name
Anderson Consulting	Accenture
Apple Computer	Apple
Backrub	Google
The Banker’s Life Company	Principal Financial Group
Brad’s Drink	Pepsi Cola
Ciba Geigy + Sandoz	Novartis
Clear Channel	iHeartRadio
Comcast (Consumer Services)	Xfinity
International Business Machines	IBM
Datsun	Nissan
Diet Deluxe	Healthy Choice
Federal Express	FedEx
GMAC Financial Services	Ally Financial
Graphics Group	Pixar
Justin.tv	twitch
Kentucky Fried Chicken	KFC
Kraft Snacks Division	Mondelez
Lucky Goldstar	LG
Malt-O-Meal	MOM Brands
Marufuku Company	Nintendo
Mastercharge	Mastercard
Mountain Shade	Optic Nerve
MyFamily.com	Ancestry
Philip Morris	Altria
Service Games	SEGA
ShoeSite.com	Zappos
TMP Worldwide	Monster Worldwide
United Telephone Company	Sprint

Ask Marshall About Renaming for Your Business

November 20, 2017 In Blog, Branding, Cultural, Identity and Brand Strategy, Sports By Marshall Strategy

Becoming a Beloved Brand

In 2017, when the Golden State Warriors won the NBA Championship for the second time in three years, the Bay Area exploded with excitement. The victory parade drew more than one million fans in their blue and gold to cheer and bask in the glory of “our” victory. The Warriors are truly one of San Francisco’s few beloved brands. They are respected and adored by men and women, young and old, in winning and losing seasons. People want to wear their colors, they know the players like neighbors, and they internalize the team’s struggles and celebrate its victories. This highly emotional connection is known as community branding, and is the envy of most brands.

Are there business benefits of community branding? The W’s have sold out every home game for the last several seasons. The Warriors have become a major attraction for out of state and foreign tourists. Win or lose, W’s fans are behind their team in every way, emotionally and economically.

How does community branding work, and how do you become a beloved brand? If we think beyond sports teams, what other brands can truly say they carry this esteemed mantle? Certainly many universities could make the claim – whether you are a Harvard Man or a Cal Woman, your alma mater is often a beloved brand worthy of your lifetime support. Other brands are a beloved part of their communities and even the world at large. Blizzard Entertainment’s BlizzCon gathering is an epic celebration of their game universes and their communities. Some players spend months crafting elaborate costumes of their favorite characters. Coca-Cola energizes Atlanta GA; the NYFD has become one of New York’s most beloved and respected brands, (beyond its sports franchises); Disney is a beloved brand trusted by families and their children around the world; and Chevy and VW have captured our imaginations and elevated our pulses more consistently over time than other car brands have been able to manage.

What do these community brands all have in common? Each satisfies a universally human motivator. Sports teams ignite the thrill of victory. The Fire Department embodies bravery and valor. Beloved consumer brands provide happiness and escape. These motivators are deeply and universally felt and part of our shared human experience. Brands that are successful enough to become and remain beloved are those that most consistently address, and fulfill, these instinctual needs. They become a part of how we define ourselves.

November 10, 2017 In Acquisitions, Blog, Branding, Media, Mergers By Marshall Strategy

Managing Brand Reputation: Media Brands Live or Die by Their Integrity

The news of AT&Ts attempt to acquire Time Warner without shedding CNN brings the value of media brands back into the spotlight. CNN has seen its share of criticism over the last year –primarily from one powerful voice – but its position, and the debate over “fake news” raises an important issue for media brands everywhere. Embellishments and dramatizations may be acceptable in politics and in the corporate business world, but in journalism, they violate a universal standard: integrity. When a writer or editor runs afoul of that hard line, it reflects on the overall media brand. Inability to earn and sustain public trust can kill a brand, or forever damage a business. That balance, trust over mistrust, fact-based journalism over sensationalism, is harder to achieve than ever.

The News of the World phone-hacking scandal from a few years ago is a perfect example of how to mismanage brand reputation. Executives of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. covered up allegations and evidence of gross misconduct instead of exposing those responsible and holding them accountable. Now, with criminal investigations under way and News Corp. employees in jail, News of the World has folded and Rupert Murdoch’s personal and corporate brands are damaged beyond repair.

Some media brands have managed their brand reputation effectively under challenging circumstances. When Stephen Glass of The New Republic and Jayson Blair of The New York Times were exposed as frauds, their editors immediately made it known to the public and took steps to make it right. This American Life took the extraordinary step of retracting a story when it was discovered that a nonfiction storytelling piece on Apple supplier Foxconn was rife with falsehoods. Editor and host Ira Glass went on air to explain the failures in his and his team’s fact-checking that allowed the story to air. Oprah Winfrey confronted author James Frey for lying in his memoir, A Million Little Pieces, which she had promoted. Each of these media giants avoided long-term damage to their brands by being forthright about their errors in judgment.

Managing brand reputation is essential to any organization, but especially to media organizations. At the end of the day, it’s the brand that takes the biggest hit when credibility and integrity are questioned and restoring the integrity of the brand is most critical. How media editors, publishers, and executives respond in crisis can dictate their brand’s survival.

February 12, 2016 In Blog, Higher Education, Scientific By Marshall Strategy

Global Teamwork Achieves Scientific Breakthrough

In Marshall Strategy’s work with leading researchers at Caltech, UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, UC Santa Barbara and Rockefeller University, it has become obvious that today’s most important issues require not just brilliant people, but people who have the skills for working with others productively.

For the first time, scientists have observed ripples in the fabric of space-time gravitational waves, arriving at the earth from a cataclysmic event in the distant universe, opening a new window on the cosmos, and confirming Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. This was only made possible by large groups of people working together and points out the importance for universities to not only impart knowledge, but to impart the skills required for working with others successfully. This applies to all significant areas of human endeavor.

August 6, 2013 In Blog, New Work By Marshall Strategy

Allegheny Health Network

We are pleased to announce the launch of Allegheny Health Network, a revolutionary model for healthcare delivery developed by our client, Highmark, with brand strategy, naming and identity development by Marshall Strategy.

After acquiring the West Penn Allegheny hospital system, Highmark assembled a patient-centric, progressive new network for delivering affordable, high quality healthcare within western Pennsylvania. Highmark chose to name this new model Allegheny Health Network, to take advantage of existing equity and a tradition for excellence at Allegheny General Hospital. In its new incarnation, we recommended communicating the key attributes of expertise, progressiveness and teamwork.

In partnership with renowned designer Jerry Kuyper, Marshall developed a cohesive brand strategy, naming architecture and visual identity system for Allegheny Health Network. The resulting system is fresh, engaging, and immediately recognizable. The new symbol arches upward, suggesting optimism and a fresh, progressive approach to health and wellness–its green and blue diamonds compose a larger mark that conveys both teamwork and patient-centricity.

When used in combination with a hospital or service name, the symbol, color palette and Allegheny Health Network endorsement create an immediate sense of presence and connectivity, enabling a variety of distributed facilities, services, and physician groups to build awareness for the overall network. The new system will connect seven hospitals, multiple specialized outpatient care centers, and 7,900 professionals from more than 200 physician practices into one of the strongest networks in Pennsylvania.

So far, local business press has been positive. We look forward to seeing how Allegheny Health Network’s new market presence helps transform health care delivery for the better.

February 7, 2013 In Politics By Marshall Strategy

What the Republican Party Really Needs – Neither a “Rebrand” nor a “Facelift”

What the Republican Party Really Needs

When the term “rebrand” is referred to as a “facelift”, (as it often is) it is a disservice to the work of brand strategists. Anyone who believes a facelift is going to fundamentally change how people see them is generally wrong. The same holds true for companies. When an organization decides to “tweak” its image, rather than address the fundamentals of its business, the resulting reactions range from ambivalence to cynicism to outright fury.

A facelift is a cosmetic procedure performed to change an appearance. When a “rebrand” is approached in the same way, it is about appearances, not reality. If the new appearance does nothing to change the reality of the organization behind it, the exercise is shallow and wasteful. In a recent Fast Company article* advising the Republican Party on “rebranding” themselves to win more support, the author suggests many ways the GOP could alter its appearance to be more appealing to voters.

We agree that the Republican Party will continue to lose momentum and credibility (as the 2012 election showed) until it can come to some consensus internally. But this article frames this problem from the outside, in, rather than the inside, out. It suggests that the party must change to please voters, rather than clarify and affirm what its members really believe in. This is a recipe for short term success and long term failure, because the party will just continue to tack its way from election to election. Clarity on who you are (and not just who others want you to be) is a requirement if your brand image is to be credible, sustainable, and ultimately, successful.

Identity and image are the yin and the yang of your organization’s brand. Your brand identity is who you are. It’s your purpose, what you care about, and why people should be glad you exist. Your brand image is how you are perceived by your critical audiences. If these elements are out of balance, they need correcting. Many great organizations suffer because their images do not reflect the true value of their identity, and many so-so (or worse) organizations spend mightily to gloss over who they really are, setting themselves up for failure in the process.

Of course, politics is a challenging context –most politicians will try to be whoever voters want them to be in order to get elected. The drawbacks to this philosophy are clear today and represented by the lowest approval rating for congress in history. Consider this, Republican Party – if you worry only about how you appear on the outside, your insides will continue to eat away at you. Find your true identity, and your image will follow.

* http://www.fastcompany.com/3005471/rebranding-gop-can-marketing-facelift-overhaul-republican-party

October 30, 2012 In Blog, Politics By Marshall Strategy

With No Apparent Brand Strategy for this Election, Is “Hope” a Failed Brand Promise?

With the election looming, and Obama and Romney neck and neck in the polls, each is trying to maintain momentum in his base and influence the undecided voters out there – especially in swing states. But something critical has been missing. Throughout this drawn-out campaign, both candidates have lacked a single clear idea that voters can rally behind, a true brand strategy. Instead, it’s been an election season filled with attacks, memes and rhetoric, like Romney’s “binders full of women,” but no emotional core.

In a recent blog post, “The Election in a Word,” Daniel Pink talks about how in the final days before the election, both campaigns are trying to keep a single, simple idea in voters’ minds. With Obama, “Forward” is appearing in almost every speech, photo or sound bite, and with Romney it’s the platitude “Believe in America.” Both are hollow, because it seems as though they’re being forced on voters, and because they seem to be more about de-positioning the other candidate than delivering an idea for the future.

2012 Election Brand Strategy

The rules for political communication have changed drastically. In the past, campaigns like Reagan’s “Morning in America” could frame a candidate emotionally instead of rationally, and broadcast this emotion through television advertising, essentially the only game in town. Contrast that with Obama’s message of “Hope” from the 2008 election. Shepard Fairey’s iconic “hope” image didn’t come from brand experts and political strategists, but from the groundswell of political dissatisfaction with the status quo. It spread virally across the social media landscape in part because the Obama campaign so deftly took advantage of the message of “hope,” and in part because people connected with it. It was a clear idea, and it spread because it connected emotionally.

In today’s world, it’s no longer effective to simply craft a positioning and stay on message – you need to connect with voters emotionally, so that they’ll spread your message for you.

October 24, 2012 In Blog, Video By Marshall Strategy

Naming Systems that Enhance Your Brand

What makes some brand naming systems stronger than others, and what’s the benefit of a system when naming your products and services?

Because your company will likely establish multiple products or services over its lifetime, it’s important to think about the system your product names create so your products will reinforce your brand promise.

Ask yourself these questions:

1. How does the new product deliver your brand promise?
2. How does each product deliver uniquely?

October 17, 2012 In Blog By Marshall Strategy

To Universities: Don’t Let Rankings Define Your Brand

Don’t Let Rankings Define Your Brand

The annual flurry of university rankings has recently flooded the media. These lists serve mainly to sell magazines, not meet the needs of the reader, and they do little to convey the true value a school offers to its students, community and faculty. The statistics employed can be – and have been – distorted and manipulated. If your school’s brand strategy is centered on rankings, your brand strategy needs rethinking.

The flagship of college rankings is U.S. News & World Report’s ‘Best Colleges’, which, the magazine says, is built using “quantitative measures that education experts have proposed as reliable indicators of academic quality, and on our researched view of what matters in education.” [http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2012/09/11/how-us-news-calculates-its-best-colleges-rankings]. As a recent NYTimes op-ed pointed out, the results are counter-intuitive to much of what education needs today, positive long term returns on a significant investment. The U. S. News rankings reward the opposite, and schools spend money hand over fist to improve their score.

One of our clients, U.C. Berkeley, produces remarkable facts and figures, and demonstrates a solid rankings performance year after year. These rankings were not doing enough to avoid concern for the school’s reputation, however. We helped Berkeley develop a brand story that is built on the intangible attributes that differentiate it from its peers. This essence is timeless, not reliant on rankings, and will not be compromised as long as Berkeley is Berkeley. Facts and figures can help validate a brand strategy; they shouldn’t define it. Our expectation is that communications based on what makes UC Berkeley a uniquely great place will draw students, researchers and donors for the right reasons, not just for rankings.

A college is more than a number – when your school understands what makes it great, it does not need to rely on magazine rankings to communicate its value. Brand value is inherent in your students, faculty, culture, history, reputation, and community. If you don’t define your university’s brand by taking all of these into account, you’re losing out on an opportunity to demonstrate your value in the education marketplace.

September 28, 2012 In Blog, Cultural, Finance By Marshall Strategy

Brand Focus: Standing For Something

Apple sold over 5 million iPhone 5’s the first weekend they were made available, setting records once again. We can count on Apple to be successful because they stand for something specific, valuable, and desirable, and because they deliver every time. Over the years Apple has mastered simple, compelling, and direct brand messages. When they launch a product like the iPhone 5, the campaign is memorable, disciplined, and focused. There’s no ambiguity as to the message or the target audience, and their sales numbers prove the power of this approach.

Brands differentiate themselves in the marketplace by clearly articulating what they represent, who their audience is, and why they matter to that audience. By developing a brand strategy that is focused, simple, and meaningful, they deliver a message that connects with consumers. This brand focus lets them stand out from the crowd.

American Express is another great example. By portraying themselves as the card of choice for the sophisticated, smart, and worldly, they have become one of the world’s top destination and travel industry brands. American Express entices consumers to be a part of their world, and they have become one of the most recognized brands in the market.

Developing brand focus is only part of what it takes to be a strong, differentiated player in your market. Once a brand takes a stand, it must maintain that position by providing a clear voice, creating compelling and succinct messaging, and ensuring that all behaviors are on strategy. And of course, like Apple and Amex, they must deliver. When brands try to be everything to everyone, they end up being nothing to anyone. Brands that establish a strong position and deliver on their promises are the ones that make a difference in the market.

[photo credit: TheQ! via photopin cc]

Author:Marshall Strategy

Notable Renaming

Old Name

New Name

Subscribe to our newsletter